Best Practices for Women's Empowerment in South-East Asia

promotion. In the Philippines in particular international migration is a significant livelihood strategyfor millions of women.Cultural norms that embed gender-based constraints are prevalent across the region, and appearmost strong in Lao PDR, Vietnam and Cambodia. Men are often the only decision-makers incommunity forums, and they typically take key responsibility for major investment and otherlivelihood decisions at the household level. This said, women are starting to get elected to lowerlevel positions. However, their representation in national decision-making bodies is usually muchhigher. Governments across the four countries are committed to gender equality and are makingincreasingly strenuous efforts to implement laws and directives to achieve this.The programmes described in this study are all exciting and innovative. The strongest are those whowork with development partners from the household to the government levels, hand over criticalaspects of decision-making to women themselves, and those who adopt multiple but carefullydefined strategies to address the causes as well as the symptoms of women’s inequality.The desk study concludes with a set of recommendations based on the case study analyses. Twocase studies taken from the work of other development programmes have been placed in theannexes in order to illustrate two of the key recommendations, namely to find ways of engenderingbehavioural change at the household level, and to find innovative ways to work with the most poor.4

The WORTH programme aimed to prevent the trafficking of Cambodian women through economicdevelopment, increased levels of education, and women’s empowerment. The overall goal of theprogramme was to increase the self-confidence and self-determination of poor Cambodian women.Its objectives were to: (i) improve their literacy and numeracy skills, (ii) increase their incomethrough micro enterprise development, and (iii) empower women to initiate advocacy actions intheir communities regarding domestic violence, trafficking and other issues identified by thewomen. To achieve these objectives, WORTH collaborated with five local NGO partners to train localwomen who served as Empowerment Workers to liaise with village women in their local areas andbuild the capacity of Women's Empowerment Groups. Literacy and savings instruction manuals,based on the Pact global WORTH training curricula, were adapted to reflect local Cambodian needs.WORTH provided skills-based training to its local partners and the Women’s Empowerment Groups,including facilitation and communication, management and leadership skills, and accounting/financial management. A mid-term survey of WORTH activities in Cambodia’s Preah Sihanoukprovince showed a significant decrease in individual debt: the rate at which group members were indebt before joining fell from 65% to 18%. On-time repayment rates among these groups averaged91%. Moreover, members’ knowledge of health issues rose considerably ii .WORTH MethodologyUnlike many other development programs which provide participants with capital and a variety ofinputs needed for program delivery, WORTH provides no seed money, no matching grants, and nosubsidized interest rates. With help from local NGOs, women are encouraged to form small groupsof 15-20 members. Groups are responsible for setting their own meeting rules and electing theirown officers. In addition, WORTH recommends that each woman pay a nominal programmeentrance fee and book fees that can be used to increase the group’s savings fund. When a groupbegins to save, the amount each women contributes, which is set by the group, may be as small asthree cents per woman per week. Women are motivated to save because their savings generateinterest when they are lent out to group members in the form of micro-enterprise loans. Typically, inother micro-finance programs, the interest is collected by outside agencies, but in WORTH theinterest accrues to the savers. Thus no matter how poor a woman may be, the village bank offers asource of income for each woman member/owner/saver. When women begin small businesses, theyare encouraged to build on what they already know and to gear it to local markets. Many womenfamiliar with subsistence farming choose to grow market gardens, raise goats or keep chickens,while others near towns start tea stalls and engage in petty trade. WORTH recommends multipleenterprises to spread risk and provide regular income that will enable loan repayment.As women read together and practice their literacy, they learn about different development issues,such as HIV/AIDS and legal rights. The materials teach women about the issue and encourage themto be proactive in their communities to deal with these issues. WORTH is monitored in three ways:women periodically assess the health of their own economic group; women visit each other’s groupsto facilitate learning from one another; and staff visit groups to backstop, troubleshoot, and assist inidentifying challenges the women are facing. Regular training workshops bring women together ingroups of 20 from clusters of 10 groups, providing an important forum for problem solving, sharing,and interaction. The ties formed sustain the individual groups and create dynamic networks forsocial action.7

2 Lao Peoples’ Democratic RepublicThe gender profile iv is followed by a presentation of the work of the Gender Development Group,the United Nations Population Fund, and the Social Economic Development Association.2.1 Gender ProfileThe Human Development Index (2010) ranks Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR) 122 out of169 countries. Lao PDR has made notable progress towards achieving some of its MDG goals due toa growth rate that averaged 7% during the past decade. However, most of this recent growth hasdisproportionately benefited people living in urban areas.The 1991 Constitution guarantees the principle of gender equality. The constitution and most lawsendorse gender-neutrality, and women’s equality is guaranteed in specific provisions of lawsgoverning property, inheritance, labour, and family regimes. The National Growth and PovertyEradication Strategy, the government’s national development plan, highlights gender as a crosscuttingvariable. The government is committed to a number of international agreements includingCEDAW. In practice, these provisions are weakly implemented and both women and men have a lowawareness of their rights, particularly concerning laws that affect women.Until very recently, there were no national NGOs in Laos. In April 2009, the government passed adecree to enable national NGOs, called Non Profit Associations, to operate, but the registrationprocess has moved slowly. To date, just four of the 73 organisations who applied for recognitionhave been approved. The Lao Women’s Union has been set up as a mass organisation with the taskof promoting women’s equality and empowerment. The National Commission for the Advancementof Women assists the government to formulate national policy guidance and strategic action plans.Ethnicity is a critical cross-cutting variable. The country is one of the most ethnically diverse in theworld, with 49 official ethnicities that can be grouped into four broad language families. Family andsocial relationships are very important across all Lao cultures. These relationships impact stronglyupon gender roles, responsibilities and attitudes in the country.Challenges to gender equity include:• Lao PDR has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world. This is largely due to thehigh incidence of childbirth at home. Access to health facilities is difficult, particularly in ruralareas.• Women’s illiteracy is markedly higher than men’s. Elimination of gender disparity in educationin Lao PDR has made slow progress. Fewer girls than boys are enrolled at all levels, and thisshare is even lower at higher education levels. The number of girls per 100 boys in primaryeducation has risen from 77 in 1991 to 86 in 2006. Non-Lao speaking girls and boys from remoterural areas show even lower levels of representation.• The proportion of women members of the national legislature tripled between 1990 and 2003and is among the highest in the region. Women's representation in Parliament is 25%. However,progress at the local level is slow. Men are typically considered heads of household andrepresent their families at official meetings.• Agriculture is a key livelihood strategy employing 80% of the population with women making upmore than half of agricultural workers. Due to the low level of gender awareness in society theirrole is frequently neither visible nor valued.• Women’s economic participation is high, and in addition to agriculture and housework many9

An interview with the programme coordinator, Ms Boutsady Khounnouvong, revealed the followingkey elements of its approach:1. Quotas are needed to ensure women’s participation. In steering committees, for example forincome generation, at least two of the five members should be women, and the aim is to havethree. If women are illiterate GDG argues they can speak and so are qualified. Men can helpthem but women have to try first for themselves.2. Savings groups are directed to women. Men then need to ask women to borrow money for theirproductive activities. This increases women’s confidence because men have to negotiate withthem and it also helps to combat violence against women. Surveys show strong associationsbetween violence against women and poverty.3. Work with men is necessary. GDG works to help men understand why women’s empowermentis important. It is a very long process. One approach is to hold workshops separately withwomen and men to demonstrate how sharing reproductive workloads in the family contributesto freeing up women’s time for economic activity, thus benefiting the whole family. Volunteersare then solicited to act as ‘model couples’ to demonstrate gender-equitable behaviour in thevillage. GDG returns after two to four weeks to discuss the experience with the couples and thevillagers. GDG has also developed a ‘Happy Family’ poster campaign to show the links betweenhelping each other and family happiness.4. GDG has to work with government as well as with the community, so it engages in directpartnerships aimed at boosting synergies and meeting expertise gaps. For example, in a recentmulti-stakeholder workshop the Ministry of Agriculture said it had a strategy for women’sempowerment but lacked resources and technical support. The Lao Agriculture Extensionproject had received substantial funds from Swiss Development Cooperation but lacked astrategy. GDG could offer technical expertise and in this way a productive partnership was built.5. The government of Lao PDR already has strategies to support women which enjoin ministries toprovide support to women. For example, women can bring babies to work. The ministry willprovide expenses to a support person or partner to come and take care of the child.6. With regard to income generation GDG works to build gender awareness around the project. Itcreates a gender focal point in each community and provides them with training and support. Italso trains women and men in the community in, for example, bamboo handicraft developmentso they can pass on their skills and also earn extra monies.2.3 United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA)UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, is an international development agency that promotesthe right of every woman, man and child to enjoy a life of health and equal opportunity. UNFPAsupports countries in using population data for policies and programmes to reduce poverty and toensure that every pregnancy is wanted, every birth is safe, every young person is free of HIV, andevery girl and woman is treated with dignity and respect. About half of the UNFPA programmecountries have developed strategies to provide women with economic opportunities.In a mountainous region of Lao PDR, UNFPA has been working with the Lao Women's Union and theMinistry of Health to combine income generation and access to reproductive health information andservices. Ban Bo Piet is a village of 54 households and was settled in 1993 by a previously nomadic11

group that practised slash-and-burn subsistence farming. Poverty and malnutrition were prevalent.Agricultural production is slowly changing to commercial production, including rice and pig farming.UNFPA helped start a seed fund so the community's women could begin cultivating cardamom, anenvironmentally friendly and productive cash crop. The village has two reproductive healthvolunteers, who provide information and promote services that include family planning counselling.Attitudes are changing, with villagers making associations between smaller family sizes, improvednutrition for children, and better health for women. Men appear to be helping women more athome vi .2.4 Social Economic Developers Association (SEDA)The Social Economic Developers Association (SEDA) is an organisation working with women and menin Laos to promote economic development. In one of its micro-credit programmes, it provideswomen weavers with small loans, from between $50 - $175, at a low rate of interest. Loans areinvested in buying the materials in bulk, and in equipment. The women receive financialmanagement training, including how to write and execute a business plan, how to market theirproducts, and how to manage a budget. Since so many villages and women are involved, SEDA isable to connect small producers to potential large-scale buyers thus overcoming the villagers’previous lack of connections and influence to negotiate fair prices. The project works because it isbased on women’s existing skills and on a product in high demand vii .Lao PDR Programmes: What’s Innovative?The Gender and Development Group has developed a cross-cutting strategy and works with all tiersof society, from government ministries to villages. This facilitates the implementation of nationalcommitments to gender equality at the grassroots levels because GDG has the backward andforward linkages to make this possible. A critical innovation is its aim to tackle pervasive genderednorms at the village levels by working on the structural and personal levels through institutingquotas for women’s participation in decision-making bodies, and through involving volunteers tomodel gender-equitable behavior. Finally, in recognition of capacity gaps among developmentpartners, GDG facilitates targeted networking to meet those gaps and thus enable each partner tomeet its agenda.The United Nations Population Fund is similar to PACT in that it works concurrently on multipleagendas. It recognizes that improving women’s income generation ability enables women to becomerecognized for their economic contribution to their families. This enables people to start makinglinks between enhanced financial well-being, an economic role for women, and family planning.The Social Economic Developers Association follows a classic trajectory through enabling women tobulk buy and then bulk sell their products, thus cutting production costs, improving sale prices, andincreasing their bargaining power vis-à-vis traders.12

3 VietnamThe gender profile viii is followed by a presentation of the work of the Centre for Marine LifeConservation and Community Development (MCD), Helvetas Vietnam, and the World Bank topromote gender-sensitive women’s economic empowerment programmes in a variety of sectors.3.1 Gender ProfileVietnam has one of the highest economic participation rates in the world whereby 81% of men and74% percent of women between the ages of 15 and 60 participated in the labour force in 2002.Although Vietnam is the eighth top mover in the world in terms of per capita GDP growth andincome has increased five-fold since 1970, disparities between poor and rich people are increasingrapidly. Despite its strong growth rate Vietnam’s Human Development Index ranking of 113 (UNDP2010) is only moderate, placing the group of countries with medium human development.Continued investment is needed to maintain progress and address areas where women continue tolag behind - such as their health and education status in remote and ethnic minority communities,the gender wage gap, participation in local level decision-making, and gender-based violence.Vietnam has the highest percentage of women in national parliament in the East Asia and Pacificregion (25.8% percent: target 33%).Important gender equality efforts are implemented by the Vietnam Women’s Union, a massorganisation for women. A National Plan for the Advancement of Women establishes a target forincreasing women’s representation in elected bodies, and the government has also adopted aprocedure to monitor legislation to ensure conformity with international treaty law. While thegovernment does not have a Women’s Ministry, it has a National Committee for the Advancementof Women established in 1993 to implement the National Plan of Action developed for the FourthWorld Conference for Women in Beijing.Challenges to gender equity include:1. Traditional stereotypes regarding the role of women and men in the society are prevalent. TheWorld Bank and UN Women recommend the Government take urgent and wide-rangingmeasures, including targeted educational programmes, the revision of curricula and textbooks,and mass media campaigns to overcome these stereotypes.2. Ethnic minority women lag behind ethnic minority men, and Kinh and Chinese women, inaccessing health and education services and economic opportunities. One fifth of ethnicminority women report having never been to school.3. The country demonstrates high adult literacy rates for (non-ethnic minority) men and women.School enrolment data show little difference between boys and girls. This said, improvementsare slow. In the past five years the expected years of schooling have only increased marginally,rising from 10.3 years to 10.4 years. Vietnamese children spend three years less in school thantheir Thai counterparts and two years less than Malaysian children.4. Women work longer hours than men for less pay. They are concentrated in slow-growthindustries with unstable, low wages.5. Greater support to women in the agriculture sector is required: 65% of women work in thesector – excluding their unpaid work in farm and family economies. Women form 49.5% of theagricultural labour force and are the key sources of labour in rice production and in foodprocessing. The government’s push to commercialise the sector and open it up to market13

investment risks impoverishing millions of small farmers, particularly women, since they haveless access than men to credit and capacity development (25% of participants in livestockextension courses and 10% of participants in crop extension courses are female).6. Women have limited access to productive resources including land, property and formal sourcesof credit despite the enactment of legislation guaranteeing equal access to land. Female-headedhouseholds are particularly vulnerable to poverty.7. Women are poorly represented in decision-making positions at the local and provincial level.Men dominate in communal decision-making (women 5% leadership in Commune People’sCommittees; 6% in Provincial People’s Committees) and female village chiefs are very rare.8. Domestic violence remains a problem, as does female trafficking and prostitution. Sex-selectiveabortion is increasing: the 2009 census indicates a sex ratio at birth of 110 boys to 100 girls(standard value should be 105:100).9. Climate change is already impacting strongly upon Vietnam, particularly as a large percentage ofits population live within the low elevation coastal zone. Storms, landslides and floods areincreasing and food productivity appears to be falling sharply. Gender-sensitive analyses andcapacity development for climate change and adaptation are critical.3.2 Centre for Marine Life Conservation and Community Development(MCD)The Centre for Marine Life Conservation and Community Development (MCD) is a civil societyorganisation which aims to promote the effective management of coastal resources whilstenhancing livelihoods dependent upon coastal resources. It works on several fronts. For example, itsupports Integrated Coastal Zone Management in collaboration with local authorities andcommunities. It also promotes ecological awareness among coastal communities, develops ecotourismand other alternative livelihoods, and works to ensure sustainable use of aquatic resources ix .MCD has developed a gender strategy which aims to (a) ensure gender and developmentmainstreaming in all programmes from preparation through implementation to gender-sensitiveM&E, (b) to improve the capacity of both genders to participate in community-level activities, (c) toimplement education programmes on coastal resources targeting women, young people andchildren, (d) conduct gender-sensitive and participatory research on coastal management, and (e)promote sustainable livelihoods among women, including in eco-tourism x .Gender-Based ConstraintsResearch by MCD shows that women in coastal areas participate in many aquatic-based activities.These include the breeding of sea products (34%), processing of sea products (82%), and trading ofsuch products (66%). Women are also strongly involved in agriculture. Men are very heavily involvedin fisheries and in clam production and are much less involved in farming than women. MCD’sresearch points to enduring gender-based constraints to women’s equitable participation in coastalresource management. For example, in Van Hung Commune (48 km 2 , 10,470 people in 2,038households) all the owners of ponds and fish culture areas are men, whereas almost all the hiredlabourers are women. Women’s work in aquaculture is undervalued even by women themselvesbecause men’s work is more visible. For instance, women harvest clams by hand whereas men usemachines for harvesting and for creating ponds. Culturally, women’s work is considered ‘light’ and14

their income is seen as ‘supplementary’. This has repercussions for the ability of women toparticipate in decision-making at all levels. Men take all key investment decisions with regard toproductive activities, although women have an important say in household expenditure decisions.Men also participate far more frequently than women in community activities and hold almost allmanagement positions. Women’s contributions are seen as of less value and also many women findit hard to speak in public. Regarding assets, men hold the majority of land title (90% in Van HungCommune, for example) and are much more likely to obtain a loan (80% in Van Hung Commune)than women because most banks only disburse one loan per household. Since men are seen asheads of household most loans are released to men. Interesting, the Women’s Association providesmicro-credit to the poorest women, leaving a large number of higher income women unserved.Whilst both women and men benefit from various capacity development initiatives many of theseoffer segregated training. For example, women can attend health programmes but not aqua-cultureor agricultural programmes, meaning that men are more likely to obtain technical informationdirectly related to their livelihoods.Gender-Sensitive ResponsesTo tackle this situation MCD has developed a number of measures to improve women’sparticipation. These include (a) Community Coastal Clean-up whereby women clean up the shoresand men clean coral reefs and lobster cages, (b) Women-facilitated advocacy for the Trao ReefMarine Reserve, and (c) Capacity development programmes for women leadership at communitylevel. It is recognized that unless women hold management positions, their role in decision-makingover coastal resources will remain limited. MCD is working with local administrative structures(province, district, commune) to develop a gender-responsive local development planningmethodology based on national level gender equity policies. Further work on capacity building,education on relevant environmental laws and networking between women’s groups in differentcoastal communities are all envisaged as part of this package. A number of valuable evidence-basedrecommendations aimed at meeting women’s strategic gender needs have been made but are yet tobe implemented.MCD is also promoting new forms of livelihood based upon existing natural resources. One of theseis community-based eco-tourism which is being piloted in Giao Xuan Commune. This includes homestays, tours and cultural shows and is considered women-friendly because women still perform thegreat majority of reproductive tasks and so need income-generation opportunities close to home.Furthermore, women are already skilled in the majority of tasks needed for a successful eco-tourismenterprise, such as cooking, cleaning and receiving guests. Some of the benefits, apart fromimproved incomes, include networking between women and other stakeholders, such as tourismcompanies and local authorities, and knowledge sharing regarding eco-tourism with othercommunity members. This has improved the standing of women at community level. Second, menare now more involved in household tasks since these help to provide an income, thus changing thegender division of labour in the home. However, concerns remain. They include: (i) eco-tourism mayincrease women’s workloads still further and therefore measures still need to be taken to counteractthis, (ii) whilst women possess the basic skills for eco-tourism, these skills need upgrading to ensurea professional standard, yet women often lack access to such courses (c) women are still finding ithard to gain institutional support and leadership positions in eco-tourism initiatives xi .15

3.3 Helvetas VietnamHelvetas (the Swiss Society for International Cooperation), in collaboration with local partners, issupporting a five year Programme for the Development of Organic and Fair Trade Cocoa in Vietnam(2009-2013). It commenced with 22 demonstration farmers in 2009 and currently 400 farmers are inthe process of converting to certified organic, UTZ, and fair-trade cocoa production. A multistandardInternal Control System has been developed to permit farmers to convert to thecertification scheme which best suits their circumstances. Two certificate holders have beenestablished: the Cho Gao Cocoa Cooperative in Tien Giang Province, and Hung Thinh Co Ltd in BenTre Province. These have been trained to set up and run the Internal Control System according tothe requirements of the various certifiers. The overall aim of the programme is to increase the livingstandards of the rural population in southern regions of Vietnam through improving social,economic, and environmental conditions in the agricultural sector.Gender-Based ConstraintsHelvetas commissioned a gender analysis of the existing gender division of labour among the targetgroups which practice missed cocoa-coconut cultivation in the Mekong Delta xii . The aim was toassess the potential gender-based constraints to women’s equitable participation in all aspects ofthe programme and to come up with recommendations.The study showed that women are entirely responsible for reproductive work, often run small nonfarmbusinesses, and also participate in almost all productive work. Women are active in all areas ofproduction including planting, weeding, mulching, watering, pest control, as well as harvesting andpost-harvest processing (including pod-breaking, sun-drying and fermenting). Men concentrate onspecific tasks, particularly land preparation, transportation ditch upgrading, and all work associatedwith the use of machinery. In some areas, women do almost all the work in cocoa due to male outmigrationor off-farm work. Despite women’s critical role in cacao production, their work isconsidered ‘light’ whereas men’s work is considered ‘heavy’. Moreover, the tasks associated withwomen are time-consuming and repetitive. The study also found that women raise poultry for meatand eggs, and also grow vegetables and fruits for subsistence production. However, this contributionwas not considered work.Women have less access to productive resources such as land, training and information due to thecultural norms prevailing in the communities studied. Although women are heavily involved in cocoaproduction, they rarely participate in the training offered by ‘cocoa clubs’ and cocoa farmingorganizations largely because women’s responsibilities are so strongly identified with the domesticsphere. Attending meetings is seen as the responsibility of male household heads. Women’s lack ofcapacity development has obvious impacts upon cocoa quality. The study findings show, however,that women are much more active in local organizations where a strong Women’s Union is presentat village level. Finally, the willingness of men to support women’s participation in community levelactivities is very important.Gender-Sensitive ResponsesTo date, the programme has undertaken the following steps xiii :16

1. Two training courses on gender mainstreaming in certified cocoa production for local staff toensure that gender issues are taken into consideration when project activities are formulatedand implemented. As a result, women have been enabled to participate in our project activitiesin general and farmer club activities in particular. To date 30% of the participants are women.2. In order to join the certified cocoa programme, the registration form for each household mustbe signed by both husband and wife. The aim is to ensure inclusion of women in local certifiedcocoa production.3. A credit and savings component has been developed to empower female farmers. Thiscomponent is implemented by the Fund for Women’s Economic Development under themanagement of the Provincial Women’s Union. In this component, women are trained on cocoaproduction techniques and cocoa trading related activities.3.4 World BankThe World Bank’s Third Rural Transport Project (RTP3) noted that, despite major investments in roadinfrastructure, several hundred communities, particularly those in mountainous areas, remainedpoorly connected. Key barriers to improving roads included a lack of incentives to localbureaucracies to regularly maintain rural roads in remote areas, the unwillingness of contractors towork in inaccessible regions due to fear of mudslides, and inadequate finance in governmentinstitutions to support maintenance across the network. The RTP3 team noted that, if the roadswere to properly developed, around one third of the people in the Northern Uplands xiv would haveto contribute one tenth of their total annual household expenditure, which was not feasible.Research showed that many women from ethnic minorities wanted to improve their roads. Inresponse, a novel Rural Transport Project was developed and piloted in Bach Ha District in Lao CaiProvince. The project trained 1,533 ethnic minority women in engineering and road buildingpractices and then provided formal employment opportunities them, paying 100,000 VietnameseDong per day. The Lao Cai Provincial Women’s Union (PWU) was the main implementing agency dueto its deep roots in the community and solid reputation at the District, commune and village levels.In cooperation with staff from the provincial Department of Transport the PWU recruited, trainedand equipped women to become road maintenance workers. To embed the programme in the localcommunities a wide range of stakeholders, including village heads and traditional leaders, projectsteering committees in each commune, District and Provincial Women’s Unions, and the Office ofUrban and Infrastructure Management were included in training programmes.Programme findings include: (i) road maintenance by local people cuts down on corruption andensures high quality since they have a direct stake, (ii) women have achieved greater voice incommunity decision-making and a more visible role in managing household affairs as a consequenceof their increased economic power and social status, (iii) the project provided women with a sourcein income – for many it was the first formal employment they had ever had, and (iv) thecollaborative nature of the work has promoted women’s social capital and networks. Since manymore women wanted to work than could be employed, steering committees rotated available work.This created an environment of trust and ensured everyone could participate. xvVietnam Programmes: What’s Innovative?17

The Centre for Marine Life Conservation and Community Development tackles the overwhelmingrole of men in decision-making from the household to the commune level and beyond throughmeasures to enable women to participate in decision-making bodies. The primary method ofachieving this is through capacity development by facilitating local participation and communityleadership. It is also working to develop gender-responsive planning methodologies and to help localgovernments understand (a) how to mainstream gender issues in coastal management, and (b) howto implement national agendas for gender equality. The eco-tourism project seeks to upgradewomen’s existing roles and responsibilities by enabling women to be paid for hosting tourists, thusplacing a market price on women’s hitherto invisible contributions and, in so doing, promoteenvironmentally sustainable economic development.Helvetas commissioned a gender study of its target beneficiaries as part of programme design, as aconsequence of which it was able to develop targeted measures to enable women to participate inthe programme and share in its benefits.The World Bank focused upon developing collaborative networks between existing stakeholders inroad management, and the new stakeholders – ethnic minority women and their communities. Thisrequired capacity development at all levels. Trust building measures were important particularly atthe community level to show that the gains were being distributed fairly.18

4 The PhilippinesThe gender profile xvi is followed by a presentation of the work of the Canadian InternationalDevelopment Agency, the Japanese International Co-operation Agency, and local NGOs.4.1 Gender ProfileThe Philippines ranks 97 out of 169 countries in the 2010 Human Development Index. Althougheconomic growth in the last five years has averaged around 5.1%, it is vulnerable, relying heavily onremittances from millions of overseas Filipino workers, many of whom are women. The Philippineshas a vibrant private sector and an active civil society, both important partners in development.The Philippine government adopted the Philippine Plan for Gender Responsive Development (1995-2025) to translate the Beijing Platform for Action into policies, strategies, and programmes. Itoperationalised the plan in 2001 through the Framework Plan for Women which has three priorityareas: (i) the promotion of women’s economic empowerment, (ii) the protection and advancementof women’s rights, and (iii) the promotion of gender-responsive governance. The Philippines is oneof the few governments in the world to have a GAD policy. Since 1999, a minimum of 5% of theGovernment’s national and local government unit budget must be allocated to gender plansdeveloped by all national agencies based on the Framework Plan for Women and its three priorityareas. Examples of gender and development budget projects include providing health services,advocacy and information dissemination on gender issues, establishing or improving service facilitiesfor women, establishing databases and mechanisms for reporting on gender issues, and revisingtextbooks to remove social and gender stereotypes.Challenges to gender equity include:• Reproductive health needs and rights are unmet. Access to quality health services is hamperedby high costs, inefficiencies in health care management, and social and cultural barriers.Hospitals are unevenly distributed and medical professionals are concentrated in urban areas.The international migration of medical professionals is taking its toll on health services,especially in rural areas. Maternal, infant, and child mortality are grave concerns.• Although the Philippines has achieved higher rates of enrolment and retention than manycountries, education indicators are worsening. School dropouts for economic reasons areincreasing, and there are low cohort survival and primary completion rates. The net enrolmentrate at primary school is slightly higher for girls than boys. Persistent gender stereotyping occursat the tertiary level. Professions, such as teaching, social work, and nursing, are seen asappropriate for girls. The most common fields of tertiary education for men are engineering,business administration, mathematics, and computer science.• Employment in the agricultural sector has steadily declined. The share of Filipino workersemployed in the agriculture sector contracted from about half to just over one third over thepast twenty-five years, but the number of landless wage workers has increased. Women’straditional jobs have been lost to new technologies and production arrangements. As a result,many women migrate in search of work.• Jobs in ‘modern’ workplaces are important employers of young women. In 2005, enterprises inthe 30 private economic zones, 4 public economic zones, and 4 ICT parks employed about 1.1million workers, about 80% of them young women. Women workers report gender-baseddiscrimination in the form of sexual harassment, difficulty in obtaining maternity leave, andgender bias in promotions. Low wages, excessive salary deductions, lack of productionincentives, and absence of job security characterize this type of employment.19

• Women dominate the domestic labour migration market: the majority work in privatehouseholds, and about 85% of household workers are women. The nature of their jobs makesthem prone to illegal recruitment, trafficking, exploitation, and child and forced labour.International migration is gender-specific, depending on the industry. One large group of womenmigrants consists of professional health workers. Nurses working abroad earn as much as 30times more than their local counterparts.• Under the law, men and women have equal legal access to land and other property. TheAgrarian Reform Department gave wives (legally married and common-law spouses) equal rightsto own land. The Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law states that all qualified women membersof the agricultural labour force must be guaranteed equal rights to ownership of land, equalshare of farm produce, and equal representation within advisory or other decision-makingbodies that represent agrarian reform beneficiaries. However, men are still perceived as – andare –primary property owners.• Legally, women have equal access to bank loans, but reality and customs inhibit their financialindependence. Having the greater share of property ownership, men are better able to providecollateral for larger loans, whereas women’s access to credit is limited to smaller amounts.Similarly, although women have the legal right to independently enter into contracts, manyfinancial institutions demand that the male partner co-sign any financial contracts. Customarylaws, primarily prevalent in rural areas, also make it difficult for women to act independently onfinancial matters.• Gender-based violence is an important concern though rates of GBV are not known. Women inprostitution and domestic workers are at a particularly high risk of violence. Trafficking is one ofthe Philippines’ most urgent issues, with women and girls at a greater risk of being traffickedthan men and boys. Violence against women is recognized as a serious crime requiring a unified,holistic, and integrated approach. The Anti-Violence against Women Act aims to support womenbut few cases of gender-based violence reach the courtroom.• The Philippines has had a long history of armed religious and political conflict and strife, withprotracted negative effects on women, men, boys, and girls. The Internal DisplacementMonitoring Centre estimated that from 2000–2006 almost 2 million people were displaced as aresult of ongoing conflicts. In conflict-affected areas, women tend to be responsible for caringfor the family and supporting soldiers, undertaking livelihood projects, resolving family andcommunity conflicts, and promoting peace. Men are expected to assume the role ofcombatants. Children tend to suffer particularly severe psycho-social effects.4.2 Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA)The CIDA Philippines Programme, with seven active projects in the country, addresses the priorityconcerns of the government with respect to gender: women’s economic empowerment, thepromotion and protection of the human rights of women and girls, and gender-responsivegovernance. To do this, it has developed a new Logic Model which guides the contribution of allprogrammes and projects to the ultimate outcome, ‘sustained improvement in the economic wellbeingof poor women and men in selected regions of the Philippines.’ The Logic Model affirms theincorporation of gender equality and environment as cross-cutting themes in the planning,management and implementation of all CIDA programmes and policies. CIDA’s most recent GenderEquality Monitoring Report (August 2010) notes that the quality of implementation in all projects isimproving but patchy.The Gender-Responsive Economic Actions for the Transformation of Women (GREAT WomenProject) (2006-2013) is the only women’s empowerment programme per se. It is a capacity20

development initiative that aims to support and promote the economic empowerment of women,especially those in micro-enterprises, by contributing to the creation of a gender-responsiveenabling environment for micro-enterprise development. It has three substantive components: (1)capacity development for the Philippine Commission on Women (PCW); (2) contribution towards thenational enabling environment for women’s economic empowerment (WEE); and (3) contributiontowards the local enabling environment for WEE. The fourth component is project management. Theproject aims to assist and build the capacities of the PCW as well as its national and local partners indeveloping, implementing, monitoring and evaluating gender-responsive economic legislation,policies and programmes, especially those related to the development of micro and smallenterprises.To date, the GREAT Women Project has helped women micro-entrepreneurs gain a clearer ideaabout the economic rights they can claim, and how to do so, as well as how to access services,information and technical support. Within the Philippine Commission on Women, capacities havebeen developed to enable its staff to provide gender-sensitive enterprise and local economicdevelopment technical assistance to national and local partners. It has also assisted nationalgovernment agencies and local government units to put into place policies, programmes andservices for women entrepreneurs. Many of these are in the form of a one-stop women enterprisedesk and the establishment of common services facilities for women micro-entrepreneurs. TheGREAT Women Project is working to strengthen Gender and Development Committees or FocalPoints in partner national government agencies to help sustain project-initiated gender responsiveprocesses, facilities and programmes.The Gender Equality Evaluation notes that the GREAT Women Project, in common with other CIDAprojects, faces some challenges regarding producing and anchoring substantial gender equalityresults. These include issues regarding management and team commitment to producing genderequality results, the optimal use of gender equality inputs, the effective utilization of results ofgender studies and analyses, and the substantiation of reported gender equality results xvii .4.3 Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA)JICA has been working in the Philippines for many years. In 1995, the Government of thePhiiliippines developed the ‘Philippine Plan for Gender-Responsive Development 1995-2025’ whichintroduced a GAD perspective into the Philippine Mid-Term Development Plan. At this time theGovernment of the Philippines requested assistance from the Government of Japan to improve thevocational skills of women in order to improve their economic status. The Japanese governmentprovided aid for the construction of the ‘National Vocational Training and Development Center forWomen’, later renamed the Technical Education Skill Development Authority (TESDA) Women’sCenter. Although the centre offered a wide variety of vocational courses, evaluation showed thatentrepreneurship assistance needed strengthening. Research and advocacy was not directed towomen’s empowerment. In 2004 a three year project entitled ‘The Project on Gender-ResponsiveEmployability (Wage and Self) and Training’ commenced xviii . Its goal was to strengthen the TESDAWomen’s Centre for the economic empowerment of women through training, research and policyrecommendations. It had four output areas (1) strengthen the gender mainstreaming capacity ofTESDA Women Centre staff, (2) improve the Centre’s training systems, curricula and methodologiesby integrating gender perspectives to enhance the employability of women, (3) strengthen theCentre’s one stop service for women’s employment, and (4) strengthen the Centre’s policy21

ecommendation, information dissemination and networking functions in relation to the economicempowerment of women.Evaluation of the ‘Project on Gender-Responsive Employability (Wage and Self) and Training’demonstrated several successes in terms of organizational strengthening in the output areas namedabove, although no human resources were allocated to the one-stop shop and it thus failed tofunction as a business counseling centre. The evaluation found that the TESDA Women’s Centre hascontributed to gender mainstreaming in technical and vocational education (TVET) in the Philippinesthrough innovative training courses, an expansion of a gender-focused personnel network, and thecollection and analysis of gender-disaggregated data in relation to TVET. The impacts upon clienteleinclude: (1) training offered by the TESDA Women’s Centre has enabled the placement of womeninto higher paying positions of the sort not normally held by women, (2) there has been an increasein the number of training sessions on gender awareness requested by private companies, (3) theCentre has developed a good reputation for producing skilled personnel, (4) improvements totraining courses, including the introduction of new subjects, the provision of entrepreneurshiptraining, networking with industry partners and a labour market study, are thought to haveimproved the employment / self-employment rates of TESDA graduates.4.4 Kiyosato Educational Experiment Project (KEEP), Episcopal Diocese ofthe Northern Philippines (ENDP) and Sibol Ng Agham at Teknolohiya(SIBAT Inc)The Episcopal Diocese of the Northern Philippines (ENDP) initiated an off-grid power project tosupply power to several villages through the construction of a hydro-electric facility. Sibol Ng Aghamat Teknolohiya (SIBAT Inc), a local NGO which promotes and develops appropriate technology,provided technical assistance, and Kiyosato Educational Experiment Project (KEEP), a Japaneseorganization dedicated to education and outreach, provided the funding xix .Before the installation of the plant, energy consumption in the communities was primarily forlighting and cooking, with some residents using battery-powered flashlights and transistor radios. Allhouseholds had one or two kerosene lamps but only 40% used them regularly due to the high cost ofkerosene and difficulty of transporting it from the market. Regarding work, women and childrenprovided all post-harvest processing to rice, and women’s role in decision-making was mostlyconfined to household matters, the school and the church. Men’s decision-making was in thepolitical domain. Today, the project provides enough electricity for lighting and small appliances inover 300 households as well as community buildings. Two rice mills and a sugar cane press havebeen installed.Gender equity in project planning and planning ensured the inclusion of economic activities tobenefit women. Whilst women were not involved in the initial planning meetings, men consultedwith their wives and brought their views into discussions. Women were strongly involved in theconstruction phase, hauling sand, fetching water and preparing food. Widows in particular spentmany hours on construction and if husbands were away, wives came in their stead. The micro-hydro22

is managed by a board of directors comprised of three women and four men. Project impactsinclude:• Both women and men are able to work longer hours on income-generation activities due to theincreased lighting. Men weave baskets at night and their output has increased dramatically. Theincome thus generated has helped stabilize poor households. The rice mills and sugar cane presssave women about an hour a day which can then be reinvested either in other economicactivities, farm work or in the household.• Household spending on fuel has declined. About 10% of people have purchased new appliancesincluding televisions and video/CD players. Apart from personal entertainment these act assources of income since children in particular want to watch videos. Kitchen appliances such asrice cookers have been purchased. The earnings from the rice mill are divided into three parts:to the operators, the church and the micro-hydro project itself to pay for the electricity.• The important role of women on the board is unusual for the area and probably reflects theimportant role of the church in the project, in which women are very active.However,• Women are not involved in technical training and this limits their ability to understand thetechnical workings of the project. Richer families with income from outside employment havebenefited most from rural electrification. They have the extra money to purchase appliances andthen use them as an income generation opportunity, thus widening the income gaps. Thecommercial use of videos has affected children negatively, exposing them to bad language andviolence which they imitate.Philippines Programmes: What’s Innovative?CIDA’s commitment to assess all of its country programmes against Gender and Development goalsis remarkable. The evaluations are stringent and highlight strengths and weaknesses on a year byyear basis. The GREAT Women Project is valuable because it works on the overall enablingenvironment for women’s micro-enterprise development, potentially benefiting millions of women.JICA’s work on strengthening the organizational ability of the TESDA Women’s Centre to deliver onits remit is a good example of change management that ultimately benefits the target group. Thisrequired changes across the entire organization.KEEP and associated NGOs scored successes for women’s economic empowerment by ensuringwomen’s views and needs were considered in the project’s design and implementation. This enabledwomen to partake of the benefits and indeed ensured a wide range of community benefits.23

5 Recommendations to UNDP Myanmar5.1 Women’s Economic Empowerment: Improve women’s productivityand control over productive assetsThe desk study shows that:Thus:• Gender inequality is a consequence of multiple factors. Poverty a critical contributing factor,which again is cross-cut by other factors such as ethnicity, remoteness from urban centres,and disability, (etc). This results in multiple disadvantages for some women and men.• Climate change is becoming an increasing important factor which affects women differentlyto men due to their differing roles and differing control over assets.• Poverty affects both women and men very strongly. However, men generally control the fewassets that a household may have and are thus more secure. Male ownership over assetsalso means that men tend to get more involved in producer associations and to receivetraining. Conversely, women’s work in agriculture and in small and medium scaleenterprises is scarcely recognised, resulting in a severe lack of targeted capacitydevelopment initiatives for women. In some cases women’s weak control over assets leadsthem to migrate to urban centres, or internationally.• Many potentially lucrative income-generation opportunities are culturally barred to eitherwomen or men.• Targeting credit to women rather than men demonstrably improves their importance indecision-making at the household level. However, in cases where men use some of the loanfor their own enterprises, women are vulnerable when men default.• Projects and programmes that address the causes, as well as the symptoms, of genderinequality are needed. They need to address multiple objectives, for example savingsprogrammes in combination with advocacy to address key gender-based constraints in thelocality or region.• No programme can do everything. Synergies with government and non-government actorsare required in association with strategies to enable target beneficiaries to direct, as far aspossible, programme focus and direction.• It is necessary to shift away from credit-only programmes to programmes focusing onstrengthening women’s economic empowerment through improving their ability to generateincome. This requires market-orientated approaches.Recommendations:1. Provide targeted business development services to women’s enterprises.24

2. Provide targeted support to women’s participation in value chain developmentprogrammes 1 .3. Measures to help women build and retain their assets need to be taken at all levels includingin livestock, land, machinery and business premises.4. Address women’s mobility constraints to enable them to participate in marketing, trainingand other business activities 2 .5. Provide support to women’s reproductive roles through the introduction and deployment ofimproved technologies 3 and through encouraging men to share reproductive work 4 .6. Work with the whole household to enable them to plan collectively for the future by using a‘Household Approach’.Recommendations for Financial Services1. The overall goal of the financial service programme component should be clearly articulatedand corresponding measures taken. The delivery of financial services should enable clientsto participate in a wider programmatic objective, such as in specified value chains or in thedevelopment of small and medium sized enterprises.2. Financial services should be tailored to the needs of middle-income women as well as themost poor.3. Financial service design should be based on comprehensive baseline studies not only ofexisting providers but also regarding the actual goals of the intervention (participation invalue chains, reduction of women’s susceptibility to specified vulnerabilities).5.2 Gender Equity in Decision-Making Bodies: Facilitate women’sparticipation both in programmes and government structuresThe desk study shows that:• Generally, women are better represented at the top of the decision-making pyramid than atthe local level. This is due to the strength of cultural norms across the countries surveyedthat privilege men as thinkers and doers, and which tend to invisibilise women’s economicand personal contributions to household and community well-being.1 These can include (1) Identifying gender-based constraints to female participation at all levels of the selected value chain,and designing measures to overcome these; (2) Participatory mapping and other activities to enable women and men toidentify gender-based and other constraints to effective participation in value chains; (3) Increasing the distributional gains(% of money of final sale price) to women and poor people more generally in value chains; and (4) Aspects of selectedvalue chains may need to be adapted to enable women (and men) to participate in order to overcome culturalprohibitions, for example taboos with regard to climbing trees for women. Technological innovation often helps (such aslocating beehives at ground level).2 Identify the specific gender-based constraint to their mobility (religious norms, associations with ‘modesty’, timeconsumingreproductive role) and devise appropriate measures to overcome these (such as chaperones and labour-savingtechnologies).3 For example, improved cook-stoves and food processing facilities like rice huskers, water points, village levelelectrification.4 This will require much work on alleviating taboos around male participation in such activities. Evidence from othercountries shows that placing a financial value on reproductive work (through hosting tourists in home-stay programmes,food preparation for sale, providing animals and containers for transport of water etc) can increase male participation inthis work.25

Thus• Women generally focus their contributions upon topics associated with their reproductiverole, whereas men discuss community level issues and livelihood concerns. In many cases, allfinal decisions are taken by men.• Assisting government and community decision-making bodies to implement national leveldirectives for gender equity is a priority. Enabling them to develop and implement genderresponsiveplans is required together with sensitive advocacy for these measures.• Capacity development of women to enable them to participate in, and lead, village levelstructures is necessary.Recommendations1. Assist government decision-making bodies at all levels to implement national level directivesfor gender equity.2. Advocate with village-authorities on how to solicit and improve women’s participation andhow to improve participatory meeting procedures. A good strategy would be to make linksbetween with women’s economic empowerment (and gains in overall household well-being)with participation in community administration structures.3. Provide targeted capacity development for women to enable them to participate effectivelyin meetings.4. Hold all meetings and training sessions at times and places convenient to women, providingsupport services if necessary.5. For programmes:o Consider instituting quotas for women’s participation in mixed-gender decision-makingbodies.o Develop measures to ensure women take on leadership roles (e.g. if chair is man than vicechairis woman).o Ensure eligibility criteria for membership in associations enable women in general, and poorwomen and men in particularl, to participate (for example, dissociate membership inproducer cooperatives from requirements to hold land).5.3 Measures to Develop and Support Behavioural Change: Work with mento change gender roles and responsibilities.The study shows that:Thus:• Women’s work is generally not valued in most cultures in the countries surveyed, regardlessof whether reproductive or productive, and that women’s work can increase as a result ofproject interventions.• All the countries exhibit huge religious and ethnic diversity. A one-size fits all package willnot work.• Whilst most countries (unlike Myanmar) have enacted legislation against gender-basedviolence, GBV is under-reported und rarely prosecuted.26

• Gender mainstreaming strategies need to include men as part of a package addressing theeconomic inefficiencies that derive from the unequal power relationships between womenand men.• It is critical to get men to act as champions of women’s equality, and to engage inbehavioural change to help alleviate women’s gender-based constraints.Recommendations:1. Innovative approaches to help model gender equality at the household level should bepursued, for example by encouraging volunteers to become model couples and throughspecial programmes targeting men to help them understand the personal and economicbenefits to equity.2. Make women’s work visible by utilising participatory gender-sensitive methodologies whichenable women and men to examine gender roles and responsibilities 5 and come up withsolutions for reducing women’s workloads.3. Work with men to identify gender-based constraints that harm men both economically andsocially at household and community level. Junior men in particular may lack access toproductive assets. Ensure that programme design addresses these. Commission studies onmen’s gender-based constraints to inform practice and to support men as necessary.4. Organise visits to other communities that practise more gender-equitable behaviour, forexample between different ethnic groups or in different areas.5. Engage with community leaders (chiefs, elders and other sources of authority) to discusshow to develop measures for gender equity 6 .6. Gender-based violence needs to be understood and tackled as a community as well as apersonal/ household level issue. It can be discussed in men’s groups, and with communityleadership as well as law enforcement bodies. As part of this, a broad understanding of GBVneeds to be developed.5 Reproductive, productive and community level, value chains,6 Build upon existing measures for gender equity, for example around inheritance, and consider how to overcome constraints to theirrealisation. Whilst solutions based on existing measures are very important, it will be necessary to consider other new measures that needto be taken and how to achieve them.27

6 Annex 1: The Household Approach: the Agricultural SupportProgramme in ZambiaThe key findings from a study xx conducted into the SIDA-funded Agricultural Support Programme(ASP) in Zambia are provided in support of the recommendation to adopt a household approach inMyanmar.ASP (2003-2008) grew out of a number of Sida-funded projects that handled different aspects of theagriculture sector in Zambia. The overarching goal of ASP was to stimulate attitudinal changeamongst smallholders to the way farming is conducted. ASP was implemented by MACO staff at locallevel (district and camp) but was managed by a Programme Management Unit located outsideMACO. The implementing agency was comprised of a consortium of consultancy companies withRamboll Natura AB as the lead consultant. ASP had a steering committee, chaired by MACO, withmembers representing agricultural sector stakeholders. Operational funding for the programme wasby means of grants provided by Sida and the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation(Norad) - a small grant in phase 2. ASP channelled funds, and added supervisory and backstoppingstaff together with resources to contribute towards effective and efficient implementation of theprogramme.The Household approach aims to reinforce extension messages initially communicated at thecommunity level. It describes a process whereby individual meetings between ASP-codedhouseholds and camp facilitators take place over a period of three years. All adult householdmembers (husband, wife and older children) participate in setting the household vision andpreparing an action plan, work together during implementation, and share the benefits together.Children are important because they are sometimes the only literate people in the household andthus are important to proper accounting. The power of the Household approach lies in its ability tobundle the often disparate and competing livelihood strategies of household members together toform a shared goal, or ‘vision’ in ASP terminology. Its motor force comes from its treatment offarmers as farm managers rather than as beneficiaries.The attitudinal changes that have been wrought with respect to the cultural norms governing ‘male’and ‘female’ roles and responsibilities are astonishing, particularly given that the time period hasbeen so short. Research shows that these changes are appreciated by both women and men. Themain reason is simply that the gains to intra-household cooperation are seen so quickly. Maximizingeveryone’s involvement in the household economy makes economic sense.Critically, empowering women has not been seen to disempower men. Rather, both men andwomen have felt empowered because intra-household relationships are less tense and moreproductive. Men not only appear to have better relationships with their wives; they appear to haveforged closer relationships with their children and can speak to them more freely.As a consequence of mainstreaming women, both women and men farmers firmly believe thatagricultural output has increased and food security at the household level has greatly improved.Prior to ASP, men were generally responsible for governing the access of each family member tohousehold and farm resources. They were able to command female labour, decide upon the use ofthe fields, and decide upon the spending of income. Very little discussion with other householdmembers, including children, was conducted. Women could not take any decisions in the absence oftheir male partners. This would not be an issue of itself if men were seen to be managing the farmwell, but in fact in many cases men are perceived as poor farm managers, even by men themselves.In male-headed households, the Household approach has started to create a shift in decision-makingover assets since, according to the approach, assets are understood to belong to the whole28

household rather than any one individual. Many female-headed households have benefited from theASP programme. In the absence of men, they have been free to join training meetings organized byextension workers, and to decide themselves how to use their land and to form their vision. Somefemale-headed households have graduated to high levels in the programme. Interestingly, anecdotalevidence suggests that women in polygamous households have been able to exploit the spacescreated for discussion and questioning of norms to their own benefit. Two wives reported that theyhad previously been in a violent marriage with no say over resource use or expenditure. Thehusband commanded them to work on ‘his’ land. Following the introduction of the Householdapproach these relationships were renegotiated. The women now hold land in their own right andno longer have to work for the husband. They have their own sources of income and control its use.Furthermore, the emphasis of ASP on working with the entire farming household has increased theresilience and coping strategies of many households. This is because all family members understandtheir farm system and have been actively involved in shaping it. Farming activities now continue inthe absence or death of the male head. Investment decisions are often made collectively and,provided food security had been assured, are directed at achieving a wider family vision.As a consequence of involving children in the Household approach, there are likely to be significantintergenerational benefits. This may in the long term encourage children to stay in farming and thusreduce urban drift, rural underemployment, etc. Moreover, one of the most tangible gains that bothmen and women respondents repeatedly mentioned is that joint planning over expenditure hasenabled more children to go to school – a significant intergenerational benefit.Despite gains for women farmers, though, there remain several outstanding issues. In the majorityof cases women’s increased access to resources still relies on their ability to maintain theirrelationship to the male head of household and to wider kinship networks. There is no evidence todate that the ASP approach has had any impact upon these wider cultural practices, or that it hasprotected women in the case of separation or death of the male partner. Rather, already prevailingpractices appear to determine the fate of the women in these circumstances.Furthermore, since ASP focused on creating a knowledge economy, it significantly failed to addressstructural gender inequalities in relation to access to, and control over, key productive resources.Important opportunities to level the playing field for women, including women in female-headedhouseholds who face sharp inequalities in accessing particular resources due to their lack of malekin, were missed. Both women and men respondents confirmed that the ability of female headedhouseholds to graduate through the five phases of ASP programme was critically limited by their lackof resources and by still prevailing gender roles and responsibilities in some areas.29

7 Annex 2: The poultry value-chain in Bangladesh: Microfinance andTechnical Support ProjectThe MTFSP is an IFAD-supported project, which started in 2004 xxi . The project’s goal is the improvedlivelihoods and food security of moderately poor and hardcore poor households and theempowerment of women, through the promotion of sustainable income-generating activities andlivestock technologies.Under the Microfinance and Technical Support Project (MFTSP) IFAD has supported thedevelopment of women-centred value chains at the village level. In the MFTSP approach for thepoultry value chain, the activities of a single woman in backyard poultry production weredisaggregated into a set of clearly distinguishable activities. Actors were created for each activity andspecialized training delivered to each: model poultry breeders, mini hatchery owners, chick rearersand poultry keepers. Value has been added through (a) commercializing the transactions betweeneach node, and (b) improving the genetic material, thus raising overall income levels for each actor.In this way, a female income stream has been generated for the household. This raises overallhousehold income in households where every Taka (basic unit of Bangladesh currency) counts.Consensus exists that although social norms dictate that men are responsible for supporting thefamily economically, poverty levels have meant that women are frequently seen as a burden –literally an extra mouth to feed. Assisting women to earn monies has brought about more equitableroles and relations in the household, recognition of women’s contribution to the householdeconomy, and generally an important increase in the status of women, both within the householdand indeed within the village.Diagram 1: The MFTSP Poultry Value ChainPKSF - Palli-Karma Sahayak Foundation (Government Partner)30

The oval shows the influence of the NGO on the value chainDiagram 1 shows the gender of the actor at each node, and also the gender of the person typicallymaking the transaction between nodes. Apart from the final interface with the market, thetransactor is female. The financial value of each transaction, shown in the diagram, is prescribed inadvance by the project implementation team, thus ensuring transparency. Mini-hatchery ownersbuy fertile eggs from other project participants who run small parent farms in confined productionconditions. The parent lines are Fayoumi females and Rhode Island Red males. After hatching, themini-hatchery sells day-old Sonali chicks to chick rearing units. After 8 weeks the chick rearers sellthe young birds to another category of project participants, poultry keepers, who keep poultry foregg production and for sale to the market.This diagram does not provide information about profits at each node. Interestingly, the projectparticipants discussed costs and returns in terms of the original loan received and the overall sellingprice of the product. They did not calculate their production or labour costs, nor discuss opportunitycosts. Roughly, the selling price was twice as high as the original loan.The MFTSP has been successful in targeting women because it has created a value chain that isgeographically limited. It trained women to be specialized actors at well-defined nodes in the chain,and added value by upgrading and managing gene flow (improved poultry / cattle / goats). The levelof technology is appropriate. The mini-hatcheries are easy to build and manage, and yet aresophisticated in design. Further success factors include the fact that the project specifically set out toreach women and the most poor, and it benefited from committed staff both within governmentdepartments, and in the implementing organizations.31

8 EndnotesCambodiai The Cambodia Gender Profile is taken from the following documents: (1)http://genderindex.org/country/cambodia Gender Equality and Social Institutions in Cambodia; (2)http://www.un.org.kh/undp/what-we-do/gender-equality/gender-equality (3) Welch, C.H.with the assistanceof Veasna Chea and Samkoi Lay (2010) Gender Assessment USAID /Cambodia. DevTech Systems.ii http://www.pactcambodia.org/Programs/Program_worth.htm and Pickens, M. Thavy, M. and Keo Khang(2004) Savings-Led and Self-Help Microfinance in Cambodia: Lessons Learned and Best Practices. PACT.iii http://www.adb.org/gender/working/cam001.aspLao PDRiv The Lao PDR Gender Profile is taken from the following documents: (1) http://www.unifemeseasia.org/projects/Cedaw/countryprogramme_laopdr.html.Lao PDR Country Profile by UNWOMEN; (2)http://genderindex.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/LAO.pdf Gender Equality and Social Institutions in Lao PDR.SIGI (Social Institutions and Gender Index). OECD Development Centre; (3)http://go.worldbank.org/3B8INYD930 Lao PDR Gender Profile. World Bank; (4) http://www.yeal.org/node/136Young Entrepreneurs Association Laos. (5) http://www.undplao.org/mdgs/mdgs3.phpv Jenkins, Andrew (2010) Gender and Development Group (GDG): Outputs of the Planning Monitoring andEvaluation System (PMES) Review, November 2010. Informal paper.vi http://www.unfpa.org/gender/story1.htmvii http://southasia.oneworld.net/globalheadlines/laos-women-benefit-from-micro-creditVietnamviii The Vietnam Gender Profile is taken from the following documents (1)http://go.worldbank.org/0FA6OSEBA1 Vietnam Gender Assessment 2006; (2)http://www.socialwatch.org/book/export/html/889 National Progress Hampered by Global Crises; (3)Andresen, Janne (2010). Gender Review Report: Royal Norwegian Embassy, Viet Nam. NORAD; (4)http://english.vietnamnet.vn/en/politics/1342/vietnam-s-human-development-index-2010-unchanged.htmlVietnam’s human development index 2010 unchanged. 10/11/2010. VietNamNet Bridge. (5)http://www.unifem-eseasia.org/projects/Cedaw/countryprogramme_vietnam.html Vietnam Country Profileby UN Women.ix http://mcdvietnam.org/en-US/News/aboutmcd/vision/2009/05/Statement/151.aspxx http://mcdvietnam.org/en-US/News/360seaandcoastalzone/genderequality/2009/06/Gender-equality-anddevelopment/222.aspxxi This case study is based on two papers: (1) Pham Thu Hien, Nguyen Thi Thu Trang, Vu Thi Thao, Tran VietCuong, and Bui Thi Hien (no date) Gender Issues and Livelihood Development in a Coastal WetlandsCommunity of Xuan Thuy National Park. Centre for Marine Life Conservation and Community Development. (2)Than Thi Hien, Tran Thi Hoa, and Do Dieu Linh (no date) Women’s Participation in Coast Community EducationActivities at Trao Reef Marine Reserve, Van Hung Commune, Van Ninh District, Khanh Hoa Province.xii Pham Thu Hien and Helvetas Vietnam (January 2010). Program for the Development of Organic and FairTrade Cacao in Vietnam (Eco-Cacao): Gender Assessment. Helvetas Vietnam.xiii Personal communication: Vo Van Phong, Programme Manager, Certified Cocoa Program, Helvetas Vietnamxiv ‘Uplands’ is a term used by the Committee for Ethnic Minorities (CEM) and refers to 20 highland andmidland mountainous provinces in central and northern Viet Nam. In addition, there are 114 upland districtsin 26 other provinces. The uplands have a complicated topography and are generally inhabited by ethnicminority groups.xiv World Bank (2010) East Asia and Pacific Region Social Development Notes: innovations, lessons and bestpractices. Pathways to Development – empowering local women to build a more equitable future in Vietnam.Downloaded from http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTEAPREGTOPSOCDEV/Resources/12339-Vietnam.pdf32

Philippinesxvi The Philippines Gender Profile is taken from the following documents (1) http://www.acdicida.gc.ca/philippines-e;(2) http://genderindex.org/country/philippines Gender Equality and Social Institutions in the Philippines.Social institutions and gender index. OECD; (3) Paradox and Promise in the Philippines. A Joint Gender Assessment(2008) Asian Development Bank, Canadian International Development Agency, European Commission,National Commission on the Role of Filipino Women, United Nations Children’s Fund, United NationsDevelopment Fund for Women, United Nations Population Fund.xvii CIDA Philippines Program (August 2010). Gender Equality Monitoring Report.xviii The Project on Gender Responsive Employability (Wage & Self) and Training. Terminal evaluation of theJICA Programme downloaded from www.jica.go.jp/english/operations/evaluation/tech_and.../phi_01.pdfxix This case study is taken from Dominique Lallement (2009) Gender and Agricultural Livelihoods Sourcebook.Module 9. Innovative Activity Profile 4. Philippines: Community-based Micro-Hydro Project in Kalinga. It can bedownloaded fromhttp://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTGENAGRLIVSOUBOOK/Resources/Module9Innovation4.pdfAnnex 1xx Farnworth, C.R. (2010) Gender-aware approaches in agricultural programmes: a study of Sida-supportedagricultural programmes. Sida Evaluation 2010: 3.Annex 2xxi The Bangladesh study is taken from a forthcoming paper by Farnworth, C.R. and Gallina, A. on behalf ofIFAD on the theme of Gender and Value Chains. Both authors were members of an IFAD study mission toBangladesh (2008) to evaluate this and other agricultural value chains.33